In a mobile communications technology, when a subscriber identity module SIM card is installed on a mobile device, the mobile device can register with and access a mobile network of an operator by using the SIM card. A user only needs to purchase a SIM card from a local mobile operator and install the SIM card on the mobile device, and then can use a voice service and a data service provided by the operator. To facilitate SIM card obtaining, a virtual SIM card appears, and the user does not need to purchase a physical SIM card, and only needs to download SIM card data to a terminal by using a network (for example, any data network such as Wireless Fidelity Wi-Fi and the Internet Internet), so as to bring about a same effect as the physical SIM card and use a network service provided by the operator.
In an international roaming scenario, to enable the user to conveniently obtain a mobile network service of a visited place, people further propose a solution of dynamically downloading a virtual SIM card. When the mobile device is delivered or the user enables a related service, a primary virtual SIM card is pre-configured on or downloaded to the mobile device. The primary virtual SIM card has wide coverage, can support a national-scale network registration service, and provides a location discovery function and a capability of providing a basic data network. When entering a visited place, the mobile device can request, by using the primary virtual SIM card, a secondary virtual SIM card that is suitable to be used in the visited place, and in this way, the user can use a better mobile network service with a lower price.
An inventor of this technical solution finds, in a research process, that in the foregoing solution of dynamically downloading a virtual SIM card, network registration reliability of the mobile device is affected by the primary virtual SIM card, and if the primary virtual SIM card cannot reside in a network because the primary virtual SIM card is faulty or the like, the mobile device cannot access the mobile network in the visited place. For a virtual SIM card service operator, as a quantity of users increases, more primary virtual SIM cards are required, and operation costs also sharply increase.